Why everyone wants to become anesthetist? Is it because of the salary?

FlyingScot, RN · Mar 30, 2011

Maybe a little bit more involved than that? There are interventions that are done during the surgery. If the CRNA just sits there the way you purpose, then they probably do not belong there.

Very true but I think people saying it is the "most challenging advanced practice nursing role" and the "top guns" of nursing are over stating it a little bit. There are other nursing roles that are pretty much on par with CRNA's as far as clinical expertise, knowledge, responsibility and stress...but alas not the money!

sweetnepenthe · Mar 30, 2011

CRNAs rarely sit.

student.nurse · Mar 30, 2011

Not true. I've practiced for 20 years without a medical doctor anesthesiologist(MDA). Many rural hospitals only have 1 CRNA or sometimes two that do 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off.
MDAs give my hives, I avoid them like the plague. The only reason they want you to work as a part of their team, is so you can make money for them.
Ron

So MDAs get an incentive for having a CRNA work as a part of his/her team? How does that work? Just curious. Thanks.

allnurses Guide · Mar 30, 2011

So MDAs get an incentive for having a CRNA work as a part of his/her team? How does that work? Just curious. Thanks.

When an MDA supervises a CRNA he or she gets to bill for 50% of the normal fee for the case. The MDA can bill for up to 4 CRNAs at one time, so a an MDA can actually make twice as much money supervising as they do doing the cases themselves.

You can see why there is so much opposition by MDAs to having non-supervised CRNAs.

nomadcrna, DNP, CRNA, NP · Mar 30, 2011

The easiest way to describe it is that the MDA hires 3 CRNAs and pays them 170k each. The MDA then bills the various insurance companies for the services. Depending on the variables, he collects around 300k or more for each CRNA. You can see where this is going. He makes a bunch of money for doing nothing. He can even do his own cases and make more. He does not even have to be at the hospital as he can bill the code QZ which is unsupervised.

It used to be they could bill an extra 3 units per case if they "supervised". That is gone now thankfully.

So when the MDA talks about doing it for "patient safety", call BS. If they are so worried about patient safety, why do you NOT see them in rural america? Because you can't make much money there.

Ron

tothepointeLVN, LVN · Mar 30, 2011

So MDAs get an incentive for having a CRNA work as a part of his/her team? How does that work? Just curious. Thanks.

I'm guessing they bill full prices for services and then pay the CRNA as a subcontractor much the same way NP 's get paid in some Dr offices

jerrylundergard · Apr 8, 2011

No more pee or poo! Bye bye needy pts driving you crazy for 12hrs. The OR is a pretty cool place to be. I cant see anyreason not to pursue it other than the no working for 28 months and the massive loan incursion thingy...

allnurses Guide · Apr 8, 2011

No more pee or poo! Bye bye needy pts driving you crazy for 12hrs. The OR is a pretty cool place to be. I cant see anyreason not to pursue it other than the no working for 28 months and the massive loan incursion thingy...

Not to burst anyone's bubble but you will still be dealing with needy patients for up to 24hrs especially if you plan on doing OB, and some of the OR personalities can really make your day suck. Overall IMO being a CRNA is 1000X better than working in ICU or ER!

A couple of my favorite lines from OB patients getting epidurals:

Can't you F...in hurry up? Me just grin and keep on doing the epidural then I walk out of the room 20 minutes later after first seeing the patient, preoping, consenting, and doing the epidural. You are never going to be fast enough for a pregnant woman in labor that wanted to wait until the last minute before she decides if she wants to have an epidural or not.

Pregnant patient: I am not numb enough I can still move my legs and feel the contractions. Me: Do the contractions hurt? Patient: No, not really but they are uncomfortable. Ok, so I turn up the epidural. Two hours later get called back to the patient's room for a complaint of being too numb and not being able to move her legs.... Patient was fine both times of course, but nothing I told her could convince of it though.

BCRNA · Apr 14, 2011

It is much easier to find a job as a CRNA as opposed to an RN. There are fewer of us, competition to get into a school is extremely fierce. Competition to get a job after graduation is not that hard. Especially if your willing to move. I have never met a CRNA that took more than 2 or 3 months to get a job. And that was because they took their time before taking their certification test. And the people I know that were told they were no jobs available for them, were only told that just because no job was going to be offered to them (they were extremely difficult to get along with). I have never heard of a CRNA who was truly unemployed.

Even as a new anesthesia grad with no experience, it isnt the same as being a new RN with no experience. Anesthesia programs train people to provide anesthesia. RN programs train "critical thinking" and the ability to write papers as opposed to actual clinical skills. I know there is a huge variation between programs, but as a whole new RN grads aren't capable of just jumping in and acting completely independant. New CRNA's may not have a huge experience base, but they can jump in without constant hand holding to do their job. They don't need three to six months working with a preceptor before working alone. They don't need additional classes to prepare them. I am not bashing RN's, just stating that new CRNA's are prepared well enough to just jump in and do their job after graduation. Bachelor programs dont prepare new RN's that well for actual clinical practice, its mainly theory. There is a reason new RN's have a harder time getting a job with no experience, alot of extra training and money has to go into a new RN. An experienced RN takes much less effort and money to prepare for a new role. A new RN will take anywhere from 3 to 6 months to prepare to be an independant member. A new CRNA only has to be pointed in the general direction of the OR.

My ICU orientation after graduation was a total of seven months--one month pure classes, three months working with preceptor daily, and the rest was a kind of probation period where I was watched closely. My first job as a CRNA had an orientation that lasted about five minutes, they just showed me where everything was located.

The job oppurtunites available are numerous for CRNA's. I kind of got the impression from some of the other posts here that they thought each operating room had 1 CRNA, and implying that there isn't much of demand. Correct me if I am wrong. There is a crna to every operating OR, and every work week may need two CRNA's for every single running OR (working twelve hour shifts will require two crna's to fill just one running OR every single day of a work week). A very small hospital with just four OR's would need at the bare minimum need six CRNA's to cover vacation and the schedule. And that doesnt even take into account the staff needed for offsite anesthesia (endoscopy, etc). A very large hospital would need much more. My hospital has 42 OR's and over 100 crna's. From my experience most hospitals number of CRNA's is almost double the number of OR's they have.

PVHCRNA · Apr 25, 2011

Job Market is fine. Yes very competitive... so anyone who is really only in it for the money either wont get in or will drop out. As long as people know that wanting to be a CRNA and actually getting in are two different scenarios.

antq18 · May 11, 2011

i believe that eventually there is going to be saturation in the field just like there is in pharmacy.. so many schools are opening up left and right and that leads to too many graduates and not enough job openings. right now it's still not as bad as most fields but i think it will progressively get worse. most of the new graduates i've talked to had to move begrudgingly. in this economy, they are still pretty lucky to have a job so they shouldn't really complain. this new influx of school openings will not really affect the market until a few more years down the road, when the new schools are maximizing their graduate potential (graduating as much as they can without losing quality)..this usually takes a few years.

it doesn't matter that we are very valued members of the healthcare community.. markets work on a demand/supply theory and if there are many more CRNAs than there is a demand for them, then the market will certainly tighten up.

hopefully the requirement of a doctorate will swing the equilibrium to a more stable level.

but yes, right now it isn't so bad.

jjohncar · May 12, 2011

I'm hoping to be a CRNA and it's not for the money. My mom is a retired CRNA and I have never met a person that loved their job more than she did. Growing up, I had the opportunity to be around her practice and see how much her patients (OB type) loved her and colleagues respected her. While she was an advanced practice nurse, and most her job was technical in nature, she always went out of her way to provide the care and comfort of a nurse to her patients and their families. Stressful yes, challenging yes, but worth every minute- so she says.

I promised her I was never going to be a nurse, went to college got a B.S. in Computer Science, spent some time as a stay at home mom, and through it all decided I wanted to be a nurse. I'm now back in school in an ABSN program, working my rear off to maintain a perfect GPA in hopes of going to anesthesia school, and nothing has ever felt so right.

And it has nothing to do with the money. I want a technical, challenging career as an advanced practice nurse. The thought of titrating gases, epidurals, and intubations is exciting to me. I understand that their are mundane aspects of the job but those stressful intense moments will surely make up for that. I want the challenge, the autonomy, the stress, the respect all while being a nurse and providing the patient cre that only a nurse can provide. =)